Officials from Sony have announced, via the Sony Computer Entertainment Japan website, that the company has isolated a manufacturing problem in the molding and coating of the PSP’s outer casing. In what the company claims to be only 0.6 percent of PSP hardware, excess untrimmed resin can cause the square button to catch, making gameplay tricky.
This problem has now been resolved, and units manufactured from the start of 2005 should not be affected. In the interim, the company has instituted a returns procedure for anyone with a defective unit in Japan.
Although it relates to the square button, it is unclear whether this fix completely addresses
previous complaints concerning the responsiveness of the button - apparently related to the button's distance from its pressure pad.
PlayStation godfather Ken Kutaragi brushed away these and similar issues post-PSP launch, commenting: "The position of the buttons was something we were aiming for. It's not an error, but something we specifically strove to design that way. I think we've created the most beautiful thing in the world. Nobody picks holes in the blueprints of a world-famous architect."
